Summary

In “Orientation Flight,” Jacob Stevenson “surveyed the masterpiece of his hair,” the “tallest mohawk in the history or Hood River High School” (1). Jake had to "face the rest of his life in a wheelchair,” and blamed himself for his injury (3). He managed to graduate high school and his mother encouraged him to go into computer programming, but his bitter father, Ed, just wanted to “send [him] on his goddamn, merry way” (5). He heard the words of his parents in his head. While driving around in his wheelchair, he felt like he was “just killing time in the jail that was his life,” and was unable to follow his dreams of attending music school. He fondly remembered the best times of his childhood and realized that “all of it [was] gone,” and “he felt broken in a way that could not be undone” (13).

In...